EA Introduces Paid Season Pass in EA Sports FC 25: Premium Pass

EA has introduced a paid season pass for EA Sports FC 25, marking a first for its long-running soccer series. The FC 25 Premium Pass is out now in-game and can be bought with either in-game virtual currency (500,000 UT Coins) or real money (1,000 FC Points – $9.99).

EA Sports FC 25 Adds Paid Premium Pass: Controversy, Rewards, and Future Plans for EA Sports FC

The paid progression allows you to receive exclusive content, including tradeable packs. This allows players of Ultimate Team — the game’s most popular, but also most contentious mode — to sell rewards from the Premium Pass to other players for in-game currency, which can be used to purchase the next Premium Pass (assuming they have received enough coins from sales in the game’s auction house).

Rewards range from high-rated players such as the Immortal Icon Franck Ribéry and other sought-after Evolution consumables to strengthen the cards you already own. Some players have criticized EA for adding a $9.99 Premium Pass on top of an already premium-priced game and heavily monetized Ultimate Team mode. Critics contend this pass lets players purchase powerful cards, which could give them an advantage in competitive multiplayer. Others, however, note that virtually all of the rewards require leveling up, and that the pass itself can be bought with coins earned in the game, so, technically, you can earn all the rewards by playing.

Ultimate Team Packs have long provided a way to purchase powerful cards directly, but this season pass is as close as EA has come to allowing players to purchase Ultimate Team players outright. While the implementation of the Premium Pass might be EA’s method of further monetizing the game after it’s been fairly heavily discounted in recent months, with FC 25 set to arrive on subscription services including Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PlayStation Plus, this proposition is hard to swallow for some.

Additionally, EA recently lowered its financial forecast for the fiscal year, citing underperformance from EA Sports FC 25 and BioWare’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard. In a blog post, EA emphasized that the Premium Pass is “purely additive” and promised that no rewards would be moved from the standard to the Premium Pass. EA also assured players that it would monitor feedback to ensure a positive experience in all game modes moving forward. The launch of the Premium Pass at the start of EA’s financial year is seen as a preparation for EA Sports FC 26, with the key question being whether the pass will succeed without alienating the fanbase.

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